Prepping: Operational Security (OPSEC)

When, where, how and how many. How often have you posted your prepping plans on a social networking site, how many times have you emailed your intentions to others.

OPSEC is keeping you, your family and your supplies safe. You have to be aware of what and who may be around you at all times. The crisis itself is only the beginning. The days after can be the hardest ones of all to survive. Once the SHTF it may become a daily struggle just to hang on to what you have in the days after.

One benefit from watching the television show Doomsday Preppers is you learn what not to do. First, you do not broadcast to the entire nation that you are the go-to-person when the SHTF. People will flock to your front door, and if that door is locked, they may just decide to forgo the niceties of asking for help and just take what they need.

Your children will talk to other children and with social media what it is today, not only will the entire neighborhood know of your plans, people halfway across the country will as well. They may very well know more about your plans than you do.

You may shrug this off and convince yourself they cannot trip up your plans. Ask yourself how many times you have seen a doomsday scenario play out in real life. You simply do not know what people are capable of, yet.

The point is you do not know how anyone will react. Desperate people take desperate measures. Hunting you down for supplies and for help is just one of the measures that people will take if they know where to go, and by now, they probably do.

People can go all of their lives and never call the police for help but this does not mean, they do not know who to call when they need to, they just have not had the need, as of yet.

Reduce the Space You Operate In

You will need friends and a solid network of people with skills needed during a crisis, but everyone has to be screened carefully before you start talking plans. You have to assume that if your neighbors are not prepared and they know that you are then where, do you suppose they will go when things fall apart.

Can you handle having people begging for food, safety and water, who will you turn away. You have priorities and only enough supplies for you and your family and hopefully a margin of error built in to account for spoilage, theft and damage, other than that you cannot supply the entire neighborhood.

Build a solid and somewhat selfish relationship with others. Before letting anyone into your group or so-called inner circle you have to know what he or she can do for you and/or the group. When the SHTF everyone will have to carry their own freight or you may be asked for help, so do you have enough supplies to help them and others, not likely? Therefore, everyone has to be able to contribute and if you know he or she cannot, then keep quiet about your preparations. Reality does bite but those that fail to face reality will not survive long.

You have skills, but you do not know everything, so others are needed for their skills. You need others for their skills and not necessarily because they have more supplies than you do. Keep it straight in your mind why you allowed someone into your group. In fact, keep quiet about forming or having a group until you have decided someone is worthy of joining.

Operational Security is critical because your years of preparation can vanish in minutes if the wrong person knows of your plans. Survival is not easy and you will find that the ones that bragged the loudest about how well prepared they were will be the first to fail. There are no do over’s, once the words leave your lips, they may be out there for the world to hear.

Spend less time talking and more time listening, you cannot hear what anyone is saying if your lips are moving. Learn to let others tell you what is going on instead of you telling them. Keep in mind survival is at the individual level when things go south, so the more you know and the less they do means you and your family may just very well survive.